Xinglong Southeast Asian Pastries 兴隆南洋糕点
Xinglong Southeast Asian Pastries is featured among the local specialties of Hainan.
Xinglong Southeast Asian Pastries (兴隆南洋糕点) are the Nyonya-style cakes of Xinglong (兴隆), a town in Wanning (万宁), Hainan, where returned overseas Chinese from 21 countries and regions have settled. Xinglong's many kinds of cake share one name, "Nyonya cakes" (娘惹糕), and local bakers make them from tropical crops such as coconut, pandan and lemongrass.
Where it comes from
From the 1950s onwards, returned overseas Chinese settled on the Xinglong Overseas Chinese Farm (兴隆华侨农场). They kept their old way of life there, and Southeast Asian snacks spread through the town. Chen Ruilian (陈瑞莲), who returned from Indonesia, told Hainan Daily that, by tradition, the name comes from the word nyonya, used for daughters born to Chinese settlers and local spouses in Southeast Asia. Many foods came to carry that name as Chinese and Southeast Asian cooking influenced each other.
The recipes are family knowledge. Zhan Shumin (詹舒敏), whose grandparents came back from Sumatra in the 1950s, told People's Daily Overseas Edition that her ingredients, sauce recipes and pastry skills were handed down from her grandparents' generation.
How it is made
One of the best known is golden cake (黄金糕), also called honeycomb cake (蜂窝糕), a Nyonya cake the returnees brought with them to Xinglong. Bakers add lemongrass, turmeric (黄姜) and fresh coconut milk, and the cake comes out golden and fragrant. Xinglong baker Zhou Jianmei (周健美) learned it from his mother, who learned it from his Indonesian-returnee grandmother.
Other well-known cakes include pandan seven-layer cake (斑兰七层糕), Xinglong coffee cake (兴隆咖啡糕), pandan glutinous rice cake (香兰糯米糕) and ginger-juice coconut-milk cake (姜汁椰奶糕). Zhan Shumin's kitchen makes its own coconut milk and pandan juice from fresh produce. For its cassava balls, coconuts are opened, peeled and shredded, and the shreds are fried with white and brown sugar before coating the soft, springy balls.
How it is eaten
Zhou Jianmei's grandmother told him that in Indonesia golden cake is a must at every festival. In Xinglong the cakes are sold in snack shops next to curry fish balls and other Southeast Asian dishes: the Xinglong Nanyang Flavour Snack Shop (兴隆南洋风味小吃店), run by Zhan Shumin, lists more than 100 cakes, snacks and drinks, and Xinglong coffee is the drink ordered most there.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-23. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.